Oxygen
by agentsofthemcu
Summary: AU - Skye and Coulson get dropped in the ocean in a pod instead of FitzSimmons. - "For a second, he thinks he sees something like hope in her eyes. It's enough to make him think that they might just make it."
1. Deprivation

**A/N: Hey! So I watched all of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D in two days since I couldn't go to school because I couldn't walk (long story) and I was rewatching 1.22 and my mom made a comment that if it was anybody but FitzSimmons, they probably wouldn't have survived. Five minutes later, this was all I could think about. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own AoS. Sorry. **

**Summary: AU. Phil and Skye get dropped out of the plane into the ocean in the pod instead of Fitz and Simmons.**

**Characters: Phil Coulson, Skye; mentions of Ward and really, really vague mentions of FitzSimmons**

**Pairings: None really.. though I guess if you squinted and wished upon a star it could possibly be Phil/Skye.**

* * *

Coulson's eyes flutter open and, almost immediately, the events that knocked him unconscious in the first place return to the forefront of his mind. He recalls the cold, apathetic look on the face of the man he'd once trusted with his life, anger boiling through his veins at the betrayal, and the sight of tears falling down Skye's face as she begged Ward to spare them. He remembers terror. He remembers grabbing onto the girl and feeling her arms tighten around him as they began to plummet toward the water, their panic driving them to cling together as if one could keep the other from falling.

_Skye. _

Tearing his eyes from the blackened glass, he glances around and sees her, back to him, fiddling with something he can't quite see in the corner of the pod. He moves to sit up, the slight motion of his left arm sending a spire of pain through him and drawing air into his lungs in a sharp gasp. For the first time, he looks down at his body.

He sees that his jacket's been removed, the buttoned shirt beneath ripped from wrist to shoulder. There are scraps of it, soaked in blood, pressed against what must be a seven or eight inch long gash in his skin going up from his elbow. Keeping the pressure on the wound and its crude bandaging is his tie, removed from his neck and knotted hastily in a makeshift tourniquet. Other than that, he feels slightly banged up but mostly undamaged.

"Hey," He hears Skye greeting softly, "It's about time you woke up. I was about to ditch A.C. as your nickname in favor of Sleeping Beauty." She says in what sounds almost like her usual teasing voice. She turns away from whatever it is she's doing and half crawls toward him, and he takes the opportunity to asses _her_ injuries.

There's blood all over the front of her shirt, and in the dim light he can see the orange-ish tint of it on her hands as well, though he's unsure who it belongs to. As she moves toward him, he can clearly tell by the way she's tucking her arm against her body and the slightly _off _angle of her upper arm that something's broken, and judging by the wince, it hurts. There's a bruise above her eye that stands out purple against the rest of her skin, even in the darkness, and yet, a faint smile is present.

"How long have I been out?" he finally asks, gritting his teeth as he straightens himself up, this time succeeding.

"A couple hours." Is her response as she settles down across from him, her back pressed against a metal bin.

He remembers typing a quick code into the panel of the pod before they even fell out of the plane, a distress code that seems pointless now as he realizes that nobody's been listening to the SOS signal their pod's been giving off on all S.H.E.I.L.D. frequencies. Nobody is coming for them.

After a quiet moment, she sighs, breaking through his thoughts and gesturing with her uninjured arm around them. "The glass doesn't look like it's going to break anytime soon."

"Yeah," He agrees, he'd already known they wouldn't. "It's bulletproof and pressure resistant." His explanation only receives a half-hearted nod in response.

"If we could find a way to get it hot enough," she starts, "We could burn the seal around the windows and blow them in. Swim to the surface."

He thinks that if it were another situation, he would tease her a bit, say she'd been spending too much time with FitzSimmons, but as it is, he can't find it in himself to do so now. All he can do is nod and listen, fighting down the welling up of hopelessness that has begun to swallow him up since he regained consciousness.

"There's a defibrillator we could use, but we'd have to find something with a lower flash point." She continues.

He wonders if this is all she's thought about since they hit the bottom. It wouldn't surprise him, she never has been one to give up. Vaguely, he questions if she ever passed out, or if she's been awake and alert this whole time. Judging by the tear tracks down her face that he's just now noticing, he thinks that maybe she has been.

Wordlessly, he stands and starts looking through the bins, though he's not at all sure what he's looking for. A few seconds later, she picks herself up and joins him. She seems just as clueless as he is, but he supposes it's desperation that keeps them looking for some way out.

It's been about fifteen minutes before he hands her a bottle, labeled with several things he doesn't understand, and one he does – Ethanol.

"Think this'd work?"

She takes it and reads it over, seeming to understand it a bit more than he does, before looking down to the discarded defibrillator cart a couple of feet away.

"It may be our best shot." She answers, and for a second, he thinks he sees something like hope in her eyes.

It's enough to make him think that they might just make it.

For about the next half hour, they start setting things up, praying to whatever deity that may be that their combined attempts will be enough to get them out of this. And then Skye starts messing with a face mask and a pressurized can. When he asks her about it, she dismisses him, saying she'll tell him when she's finished. A part of him says to get her to tell him right then, but he doesn't, just watches her rig the mask to the can as carefully as she can – the metal canister wedged between her knees and her mobile hand working furiously.

He chalks the tremble in her fingers down to the stress and fear of the situation.

She finishes about twenty minutes later and holds it out to him.

"When the water breaks through the glass, it'll be like getting hit with a brick wall," she explains, "It'll knock the wind out of us. This has enough pressurized air for a breath of air that should last the distance to the surface." He considers it for a moment.

"Is there enough air in here for both of us?" he asks, and for a second he sees something like fear flicker across Skye's features before she shakes her head no.

"That's just for you." She explains. He barely gets his mouth open to object before she's talking over him, cutting him off with a rushed reassurance. "There's another can in that bin back there. I'm gonna make myself one too." She gives him a tight lipped smile. "Don't worry, I'm not going all self-sacrificial on you." A laugh he doesn't believe is real for a second accompanies her words and he nods, relieved, before turning to finish setting up the defibrillator and the Ethanol.

He's almost finished when he feels her hand drop to his shoulder and he turns to face her.

"We have to do it soon or there won't be enough oxygen to light it. You ready?" She asks, and he feels like he should be asking her that, judging by the fear written all over her face and the tears that threaten to spill over.

He pulls her body against his, being mindful of both their injuries and adjusting some when she stiffens and hisses slightly in pain.

"We're gonna be fine. We'll make it out." He assures the best he knows how, and after a few seconds, she pulls away and nods.

"Yeah, you're right."

They edge as far away from the window they plan to blow as they can and prepare to ignite the small bomb that may be their chance for survival. She's got the trigger in her hand, and he's waiting for the impact. He refuses to give any 'just in case we don't make it out' speeches, so when she starts talking, he makes to cut her off, but can't, because the tears have fallen and she's smiling at him sadly.

"Hey A.C.?" She asks, voice shaking, and he rests his hand against her cheek in response in an attempt to be comforting.

"Skye…"

"Thanks for taking a chance on me. For giving me a home." Her words are quiet, wavering, but they sound so final it shocks his very core. It scares him.

She presses the trigger.

He puts his mask to his face as the water comes rushing in.

She doesn't.

He looks down just in time to see that she doesn't have an air canister in her hand.

He realizes she never had one.

* * *

**So... Thoughts? Should I continue or leave it as is? I don't wanna just leave it, but I don't know if she should die, survive unscathed, or be brain damaged like Fitz was.. ****This is probably really random and unnecessary, but the last five lines were the first thing I wrote and built everything up to that. **

**Thank you for reading, and reviews are always, always appreciated. **

**~TheFallenArchangel**


	2. Asphyxia

**A/N: So basically I was listening to the most cliche song ever (How to Save a Life by The Fray) and got the inspiration for this. I will probably write one or two alternate endings to this, and this will likely be the most depressing one. Sorry. Well, not really. But ya know. I haven't seen season 1 in forever, so I apologize if some of the details are off. It _is _intentional, that for the purpose of this particular ending, they didn't manage to detain Ward.**

* * *

**asphyxia**

_(n.) a condition arising when the body is deprived of oxygen, causing unconsciousness or death_

She'd been right. The wall of water that crashed into the pod felt like he'd just been hit with a truck going a hundred miles per hour. His back slams into the far wall of the pod before he's swept out into the ocean, his ears popping with the sudden change in pressure. Dazed, he drifts for a second in the darkness, before his mind reasserts its priorities. _Skye. _

He squints through the dim water, eyes stinging from the salt, looking for her even as he presses the oxygen mask over his mouth and takes a breath, easing the pain in his burning lungs. Part of him thinks he should've waited and given the air to Skye instead, but rationally, he knows he has no chance of saving her if he drowns himself.

Finally, he spots her, halfway out of the pod, motionless. He grabs her arm and kicks for the surface, readjusting his hold on her several times. He suspects they're barely made it half way before his lungs begin their protest again, pain flaring in his chest.

She slips from his grasp. Desperately, he grabs her again, pressing on despite the fuzziness in his head, only for her to fall away again just a few seconds later. Twice more it happens, her weight and the current pulling her away from him. Some rational part of his mind tells him she's probably already dead, already drowned. That he's probably pulling a corpse with him, and that he's on his way to becoming one himself.

Steeling his resolve, he tightens his arm around her middle and kicks as hard as he can, though the sunlight he can see seems distant and unattainable. He can make it, he's sure of it, even as black creeps in upon his vision.

He doesn't doesn't make the conscious choice to let go of her. In fact, he only notices it after gulping in several precious lungfuls of air. Horror turns his blood to ice, draining every bit of relief from his body.

Once, twice he dives, going as deep into the murk as he can, trying to find her, but all he can see is endless blue in all directions. On his third dive, he knows he's gone deep enough, that he needs to resurface to breathe, but he presses on instead, blind panic and fear fueling his utter _need _to save her.

The last thing he remembers is the bone crushing guilt as he stares into the abyss and realizes that it was what he'd abandoned Skye to.

* * *

He hears his name. In a voice that sounds suspiciously like Nick Fury's. Curiosity of that alone lets him open his eyes. Lights above him make him flinch and squint, but as they adjust, they locate the source of his name.

"Coulson." As long as he's known Fury, he doesn't think he's ever heard the man actually sound _relieved. _"I was beginning to wonder if you were going to wake up." For a moment, Coulson's utterly confused, and then it all comes crashing back.

"Skye?" He starts, sitting up so fast it makes his head spin. He's not in his suit anymore, apparently when he'd been unconscious, someone (not Fury, he prays) had changed him into a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, both several sizes too large. The director's hand pushes his shoulder in an attempt to make him lay back down.

"Slow down. What're you talking about?"

"The girl. The girl that was with me. Where is she?" He demands, eyes flicking around the room as if he might find her there. Fury's look shifts into one of understanding, and then again into another one that Phil knows far too well.

"We didn't find anyone else. Just you, and we barely managed that."

"No. No. We have to-" He starts, trying to stand, only to be stopped again by Fury's hand.

"No one else made it to the surface. She's gone Coulson." His voice is the softest he's ever heard it be, but that doesn't stop him from being sick over the side of the bed.

* * *

"Where's Skye?" May asks, looking behind him as he exits the helicopter, almost supported by Fury, as if she'll appear behind him. It must be the look on his face, because her concern vanishes along with every other wisp of emotion. She shuts down in the blink of an eye, just as she had post-Bahrain, and he feels shame course through him. He'd failed her again.

Behind her, Simmons' hand comes over her mouth, tears already streaming down her face, and she crumples against Fitz, who wraps his arms around her and doesn't even try to push away his own tears.

Coulson almost wishes he could cry. Instead, he takes his cue from May. They have work to do, there's no time for mourning.

* * *

Her gravestone only has her first name. They never found her parents, never found her last name, but Coulson had been insistent upon her having one. She deserved it. She'd damn sure earned it. There's no dates, no description, just the first name, the eagle of the SHIELD insignia emblazoned beneath it.

In the movies, it's always raining in scenes like this. Today, exactly a year since she died, since he _let her die, _the sun's shining and there's not a cloud in the sky.

He put a bullet in Grant Ward's head the first chance he got. It hadn't exactly been hard. Ward had assumed that since Coulson had been recovered, Skye had as well. All he had to do was mention that she was dead and the turncoat had faltered, providing the open window. Not a single agent had questioned his judgement.

He took his place as the director of SHIELD when all was said and done, he led the fight against Hydra. They destroyed the underground city in Puerto Rico before Whitehall and his men could get to it. She'd have done it, and she'd have wanted him to as well.

He doesn't have to see her to know that May's beside him, having appeared soundlessly while he'd been buried in his own thoughts. He almost jumps when May's hand wraps around his, the physical contact taking him by surprise. She moves to face him, and her tear-filled eyes are his undoing. He hadn't let a single tear fall in the past year, too consumed with guilt to allow himself to mourn her. It had been his fault she died in the first place, _how dare he?_

They fall now though, fast and hard, and he's not quite sure when he hits his knees before the stone, but Melinda goes with him. still holding onto his arm. His head drops to her shoulder and sobs until his chest aches and he's utterly exhausted.

"Let the girl go, Phil." She tells him shakily, echoing his words from so long ago and wrapping her arms around him, "You have to let the girl go."


End file.
